cosell@BBN-UNIX@sri-unix (08/06/82)
From: Bernie Cosell <cosell at BBN-UNIX>
I think that when Hanscom went up, that area was mostly quite sparse
farm land. To be sure it was `settled' long ago, but you have only
to drive around the field (say, Virginia road around to rt 62 then back
on south st) to see that in between the widely spaced farm houses
there are lots of 40's or later looking houses JAMMED in all around.
>From what I can tell, it is the `tract housing' folk that mostly raise
all of the hue and cry.
A note on how noisy small planes are: my wife and I flew down to
Connecticut on day to go to some kind of a music festival. We ended
up staying lots later than I had expected and it was about 1AM when
we started back. As it turns out, I was not night current (although
I was IFR current.... sigh..) and so being a reasonable, legal pilot
I decided to do the required three stop and gos before I could carry
a passenger. I was a little leary about shooting approaches in the
middle of the night, but..... my wife reported that even in the
climbout from takeoff, my 172 became essentially inaudable when it
crossed about 500 feet, and mostly she couldn't detect me by sound
again until I was nearly back on the ground zooming right past
her. Mostly if you climb out at Vx and get 700 or more feet high
before you cross the airport perimeter I think that amything
short of a monstrously big airplane is more-than-acceptably
quiet.
/Bernie